“Enakkul Oruvan”… A knockout conceit, a middling movie

One must hand it to Siddharth. For an actor whose successes have come mostly from playing characters in a narrow bandwidth (Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi, Rang De Basanti), he sure keeps trying to cover the spectrum. His earnestness is touching – it’s like watching one of those Oscar-ready, inspirational, against-all-odds movies where someone learns to overcome a handicap by sheer determination and positivity. The last time we saw him, in Kaaviyathalaivan, he was trying to fit into the Tamil theatre milieu in the pre-Independence era. Now, in Enakkul Oruvan, the remake of the Kannada mind-bender Lucia, he plays two characters: Vicky and Vignesh. The former is a lowly usher in a seedy, single-screen movie theatre. The latter is a shiny superstar. In Lucia, the plain-looking Sathish Ninasam played the lead, and it was easier to accept him as the usher than the star. It’s the opposite with Siddharth, who has posh movie-star entitlement tattooed on his forehead. In order to play Vicky, therefore, he’s opted for makeup that darkens his skin – he looks as if he fell asleep in a tanning bed with the dial turned to the Guna-Kamal setting.

The problem when a good-looking performer goes “de-glam” is that we see not the character but the star who’s gone de-glam. Oh, we exclaim, there’s Nicole Kidman in The Hours, wearing a fake nose and trying to pass off as a mousy Virginia Woolf. But in Enakkul Oruvan, which is about the blurring lines between Vicky and Vignesh, this portrayal results in some interesting (if inadvertent) meta-commentary. It’s the old prince and the pauper story, except that we’re not supposed to be seeing one “disappear” and become another. We’re always meant to be aware of a star attempting to erase his aura of stardom, and of an ordinary man dreaming about becoming a star. As much as the film is about Vicky and Vignesh, it also functions as a chronicle of Siddharth’s attempts to be seen as the actor who’s more than just the Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi guy, the Rang De Basanti guy. Make-believe spills into reality in more ways than one.

The film begins with Vicky suffering from insomnia and stumbling into the lair – there’s no other word for it – of Vajravelu (John Vijay, overacting like crazy), some sort of mad scientist with tattoos, a pierced lower lip and much fondness for the Boney M oeuvre. Vajravelu offers Vicky a pill named Lucia – the cure for his troubles. Lucia will make him fall asleep and dream, and he’ll live the life of his dreams. Lucia could be cinema itself, which, at least in our movie-mad nation, offers millions an escape from harsh reality. Vicky, in his dreams, becomes Vignesh. In what seems, at first, a counterintuitive move (but makes sense later), the Technicolour world of Vignesh is rendered in black and white. The first transition is beautiful. This is Vicky’s dream, after all, and he sees himself as Vignesh – so the camera assumes Vignesh’s point of view and takes in his surroundings. Finally, someone holds up a mirror and Vignesh sees his face. It’s, of course, Vicky’s face. Soon, he’s slipped on a sequined glove and is grooving to one of Santhosh Narayanan’s smashing songs: Prabalamaagave pirandha aanada. (I was born to be famous.) Truer words, et cetera. Soon, he’s on the front page of The Hindu’s Metro Plus.

Like a lot of Indian cinema, the world of Vignesh – namely, the movies – is a world of boundless wish-fulfillment. Vicky falls for Divya (Deepa Sannidhi, who looks remarkably like Simran) when he sees her on a scooter, behind her father. He’s too shy to do anything about it – but Vignesh isn’t. In his world, Divya is a model featured in ads for a… scooter. He has his manager make a few calls. Soon, she’s his. This sort of thing may happen only in the movies – but at least, it’s his movie, projected inside his head, for an audience of one. Even Vicky’s story, that of an usher, makes it into Vignesh’s world as a “one line” for a potential project. It’s a thrillingly mad conceit, a Möbius-strip movie with a superb slap-on-the-forehead twist. Imagine the little boy in Cinema Paradiso all grown up and starring in a Christopher Nolan head-scratcher written by Charlie Kaufman, and you’ll have something like Enakkul Oruvan.

Prasad Ramar, the director, sticks fairly close to the template of the original – there are also subplots about detectives on a case, and loan sharks bearing down on the owner of the movie theatre (Naren) – but a lot is lost in the execution. If you’ve seen Lucia, you’ll miss at least two audacious scenes, one where Vicky’s torch turns into a projector, another where Vicky and Vignesh step into each other’s worlds. But even if you aren’t familiar with the source material, you may wonder why the happenings feel so flat, why the film doesn’t flow smoothly, why there’s so little mood. It’s no surprise that Enakkul Oruvan lacks the intimate texture and delicacy of Lucia. When you open up a niche, crowd-sourced film into something more mainstream, you are going to get more… “commercial.” And yet, the thing that made LuciaLucia was its very offbeat-ness. Watching Enakkul Oruvan, you’re left with the feeling of waking up from a dream and coming face-to-face with harsh Kollywood reality.

That seems like a rather harsh assessment Rangan. But I understand your frustration since you have seen the Kannada original and appreciated it. When I saw the promo of Enakkul Oruvan, Siddarth’s make up seems a tad too artificial. He could have simply opted for less make up. In the original, Satish carried off both roles with aplomb, while per your opinion, Siddarth as an usher is unconvincing. When Satish acted in Lucia, he was an actor who did supporting roles, so he didn’t had that star aura around him (he still doesn’t have that aura though). Probably had EO opted for a lesser-known star, the movie might have worked. Let’s see how the audience accept this movie.

It is not a bad conceit, I’ll give Enakkul Oruvan that, but a halfway decent twist doesn’t a good film make. The problem for me was that the dream segments as well as the reality portions lacked authenticity. Although it is equally likely that I have trouble dealing with the harshness of a reality where men, irrespective of their backgrounds – a star and an usher alike feel that their women need their approval and express permission to go ahead with their lives. And if the ladies dare to take matters into their hands they find themselves dangerously close to getting dumped and return, crawling back with tearful apologies. Of course, women who expect their men to have decent jobs and look like they haven’t been rooting around in garbage bins with the rats, are shallow bitches, whereas men with “nalla manasu” who can fall in love only with alabaster automations that have perfect salon – hair even when they are slaving over fryers all day are lovely human beings who deserve to have their petty whims indulged at all cost. The Enakkul Oruvan team have gone all out with the risk – taking which is why the sexist overtones jarred even more than the sluggish pace and the uneven screenplay.

You mentioned that Siddharth playing Vicky was just a star who had gone de – glam. I agree but strangely enough I found the movie -star being played by a fella who has movie – star entitlement tattooed on his forehead even less convincing.Perhaps Siddharth is just not the sort of person who would willingly wear rhinestone encrusted shoes, have a spot boy bring a chair for his feet or have an extra hold an umbrella at the right angle over his pampered tome.

Santhosh Narayan is something else though and his quirky little numbers where the highlight of the film. It is too bad that in Enakkul Oruvan, real life and make – believe are equally bland and yucky.

Have seen Lucia and now after this review, might wait and watch in TV. Very rarely do Kannada movies get remade (usually its the other way) and to see it fail, feels bad. More importantly, Siddharth expected the three movies – Jigarthanda, Kaaviya thalaivan and this, to change his position in Tamil. Only 1 of the 3 is successful and in the other 2, credit (or the man of the match) went to his fellow artistes more than him (Bobby Simha and Prithviraj). Being a Rahane in a Kohli or a Raina show makes you fight for survival every match. We might see him make more of those “chocolate hero” movies in Telugu now to survive. Sad… Q to ponder is what is the way out is for these non-macho, non-“son of the soil” looking heroes like him, Prasanna, Srikanth, Shyam, Vinay etc..(not to become another Aravindsamy or Abbas)

Santhosh’s two brilliant songs are the major take away from this, then – “Poo avizhum” and “Prabalamagavey”… Two Kamal titles failing one after, blame the title!

You are a bit harsh (maybe it is just that I haven’t see Lucia). Why are the proceedings so bland? Because they lacked a bit of authenticity,and the whole affair with foreigners was poorly staged, the girl wanting him to learn English was so unconvincing.

Yep, I could never buy the character of loser sidhaarth, though some parts were touching, like him leaving 610 at the pizza store. And till that point I was hooked into their relationship, which started feeling a bit fake after the ‘wanting him to learn English episode’.

By the way one of the main reasons I feel for films like Lucia, made with artistic ambitions fail in box-office is their entertainment quotient. Jigarthanda was possible only because of the entertainment it offered, same as the case with Soodhu Kavvum(Aaranya Kaandam maybe an exception). So,maybe the directors should make their movies organically entertaining, which can not always be done if the movie is an drama. And that is sad, and the reason why we don’t have very few movies in the genre drama in Kelly wood.

Anuja : I think the POV is different in the film. For the film star, everything came to him – including the love life , money . There was no ‘effort’ required from him and felt it was not a wholesome life .

The counter to that is a life where he is made to sweat by the female and he is made to earn that in some way . I did not find this intentionally sexist , but rather apt to the characterisation

@Mumbai Ramki, Lucia was a multiplex hit in Bengaluru but didn’t fare so well in single screen theatres. Lucia ran for 50 days in a theatre that usually screened Telugu movies. However, the movie attracted a lot of audiences who hitherto avoided Kannada films for a variety of reasons.

Mumbai Ramki: I get that everything came easy and the poor lil rich boy felt empty but that is hardly reason for him to sabotage her career, piss on her dreams and emotionally blackmail her into kowtowing to every one of his neurotic whims. As for the alternate life, sure the guy does not have it easy but all the same, the audience is expected to sympathize with him because the white gal dared to reject him for obvious reasons and she is redeemed in the eyes of the audience only when she accepts him as he is without the ‘misguided’ attempts to change him. Compare this with a film like Shivaji where Rajjnikanth’s character despite being too noble for worlds wants nothing to do with Solomon Pappiah’s daughters who are dark – skinned and nobody is expected to feel for them!

Agreed that the film is not intentionally sexist since it clearly considers itself subversive but that makes it all the more tragic because it just goes to show how deeply male chauvinism is ingrained in our culture and movies.

Anuja : This discussion brings an interesting aspect – how much do we want to see this as a ‘character’ vs director’s intention to portray films as a ‘sample ‘ of society. To me it is just a character who has lost of his control and does things with swings in emotions ( and at the height of it , jumps – ) . A parallel i see is the Ananda Pongatre female character – who is mentally caged by her parents and cheats the hero. It has nothing to do with being whote or bring rich , it is the way the character is and is consistent with other parts of the movie

Regarding the ‘white’ gal – I personally didn’t think it had anything to do with that. Even the tan make up of Siddarth made sense to me – as to him, he wants to live a life of a normal man and being a cine actor , he can visualise only a ‘make up’ version of himself retaining others as is ( as his focus is only on him). The whole point to me , is that he wants to be accepted as is , without the expectations of the outside world ( the reason why he hid that he is color blind ) which is possible only in his dream life and not in real life. ( And Deep Sannidhi did a great job is this movie )

Mumbai Ramki: I not too sure how this is similar to Anantha Poongatre. That is the movie in which Meena pretends to be a widow, right? Are you saying that the director did not share Meena’s character’s thought process?

I sincerely think siddharth right now is only fit to play a chocolate boy. He doesn’t have the acting skills to do movies like these. Intentions does not make a good movie. acting does. Siddharth i think should go back to some acting school or join koothu pattarai. Instead of wasting time online self promoting himself. He should be on the streets observing a theater torch bearer.

I couldn’t agree more with @ram. I watched both Kannada and Tamil versions. Siddarth is a miscast for this film. I just couldn’t connect with the tamil version, but when I watched the Kannada version I couldn’t believe such a film was made in Kannada industry. This role should’ve been played by a ‘nobody’ and the editing in Tamil version is not as fluid as the kannada version.